


you could be the death of me.

by thepapernautilus



Category: The X-Files
Genre: Established Relationship, F/M, Plot What Plot/Porn Without Plot, Porn with Feelings, X-Files A Map of Us: 50 States of Sex Challenge, minor thalassophobia warning
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-07-13
Updated: 2019-07-13
Packaged: 2020-06-27 13:14:33
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,730
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19791616
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/thepapernautilus/pseuds/thepapernautilus
Summary: Fox. Had ever a first name, ever a word, held such damnable connotation for her? It was loaded with promise and heartbreak. She’d never called him it aloud before, only the once. But they’d done far more than kiss and he still never asked to be called Fox… until now.“Dana,” she said without thinking, placing her hand into his.(written for the 50 states of sex challenge for the beautiful state of alaska.)





	you could be the death of me.

**Author's Note:**

> a/n: gonna be honest y'all, my depression/anxiety has been kicking my ass & i just now have been able to break my fucking writer's block. feels good man.

_ 'cause I'm a sucker, I'll do 'bout anything _   
_just to get those hands on me,_   
_keep me hanging on so desperately_   
_baby, you could be the death of me_

_ death of me - pvris  _

She was uncomprehending as he delivered her tour bus tickets for two to their district’s younger sister, the mournful peninsula of Washington state, early Monday morning. He bestowed this upon her with little more gusto than the driest of dusty expense reports, mentioning off-handedly, without looking up from his case file, that there were some reliable local reports of some bizarre creature, unimportant and uninteresting to Scully, that warranted looking into. She hadn’t had to lift a finger to arrange any of this and that was her first clue that something was amiss in the land of Mulder, especially when she received news via A.D. Skinner of all people that her travel expenses had been approved. 

She had stared Skinner down from across the divide of his mahogany table, willing him to let something slip, but he merely met her gaze as even-keeled as her Ahab himself and dismissed her without meeting her eyes. Fine, then. She’ll find out what damp hell Mulder was dragging her into this time for herself.

The following week they took a red-eye flight to Washington state, Scully’s bags packed with her least interesting polyester and office attire, some hiking boots thoughtfully tucked away, thinking of traipsing through derelict ancient forests at Mulder’s heels with some distaste as the Northwest seemed to always hold for her, before Mulder grabbed her arm in the terminal and pulled her away from security, whispering hurriedly in her ear with a demanding hand at her shoulder to go find something “touristy” to wear, pretty please, Scully. When she snapped at him that she had nothing of the sort, “goddammit Mulder you never tell me these things,” he handed her his personal credit card and gave a gesture to the various designer stores lining the airport. She relented and decided to treat herself to something nice, especially after all of the nightmarish ordeals he’d put her through. How very suburban ex-wife of her.

“Buy a few sets, just in case,” he told her with a smile after she presented an elegant Michael Kors sundress for his approval, paneled and uncharacteristically tight at the bust line. With the help of the pleasant clerk, she left with a few days’ worth of tourist-y outfits and her old outfit in the shopping bag as well. Mulder for his part presented himself well enough in dark wash jeans, nicely fit leather shoes, along with a white cambric button down and leather jacket draped dashingly over the ensemble. 

“Why didn’t you tell me?” She asked him with a placated smile as he escorted her onto their tour bus, luggage taken from them by a smiling porter. 

“I still haven’t told you everything,” he admitted abashedly to her as Seattle began to slip away, ceaseless and relenting, uncharted forest opened its’ heart to their small little tour bus. The elderly people and children filled the bus with gentle ooh’s and aah’s as Scully stared Mulder down, willing a straight answer from his crooked lips.

“Mulder.” 

“My name's Fox, actually.” He held his hand out, palm upwards, for her inspection, on the seat rest between them.

_Fox._ Had ever a first name, ever a word, held such damnable connotation for her? It was loaded with promise and heartbreak. She’d never called him it aloud before, only the once. Was it something like in _Pretty Woman_ , no kissing, no attachment for him? But they’d done far more than kiss and he still never asked to be called Fox… until now.

“Dana,” she said without thinking, placing her hand into his. He squeezed it, then leaned over and kissed her forehead gently, breath warm against her hair.

She dozed then, lulled to sleep by the darkened forests slipping past them and the casual murmur of oblivious, carefree tourists around them. When she awoke they were at a pier, and a dauntingly large ship before them as porters once more unloaded their luggage. She was transported to kissing her father and brother goodbye on each of their numerous deployments and felt unexpectedly sad to be at the pier, a sorrow which was quickly swept away by irritation at the unexpected plans unfolding without her approval. 

“Mulder.”

“Who’s that?” 

“You, goddammit. Where are we going _this_ time?”

“On a cruise, of course.”

“ _Of course?_ ” She hissed as he took her purse from her and helped her out of the seats with an elegant Oxford-trained touch at the waist. 

A cruise for two. Seven days, two of which spent in the great state of Alaska, and a host of shore expeditions scheduled for them, including boating and deep-sea fishing and hiking tours. On the cruise itself, a beautiful eight-deck craft recently refurbished, they had a balcony all to themselves and unlimited alcoholic beverages. They ate fresh seafood at the dining hall over glasses of wine bigger than she could hold in one hand and he swayed with her to live music in one of the sleepy bars, surrounded by cruisers and the elderly, and she didn’t ask once about what monster waited for them in Alaska, just enjoyed appearing every inch the newlyweds they felt at that blissful, oblivious moment.

That night she was tumbled from sleep with warm hands and even hotter lips at her neck and soft, bare skin pressed seductively along the length her backside. “Wake up,” he rasped in her ear. “wake up, Dana.” 

She didn’t jolt awake. She instead allowed waking to creep upon her and obeyed him without question, as was her second-hand nature in these times, roused from sleep at a moment’s notice by Mulder’s gentle pressuring, and he lead her, naked and pliant, from her warm bed and wrapped her in the comforter before opening their balcony door. Icy winds hissed around her and took her breath clean from her lungs with the chill. Mulder pressed her onward, guiding her to the edge of the glass balcony. 

She had no idea what time it was, the very beginning crack of dawn was breaking on the horizon, and her eyes were half-open with jet-lagged exhaustion.

“Do you see?” He breathed in her ear from behind her, bracketing her body with two solid arms on either side of her waist. Her eyes struggled to adjust to the dim grey darkness outside, and she shuddered as the icy wind ate right through her blanket. Her pupils began to dilate -- and she saw. 

“Oh,” she gasped.

The sea was a wide expanse of perfectly still _glass,_ rolling, undulating and silvery before the slowly drifting ship, impossibly smooth and still as obsidian glass, a blue so dark it was black, and it was absolutely inextricably blended into the horizon with no beginning and no end. 

“It’s beautiful,” she murmured and as she said this his hands began moving on her, an exact replication of the night prior, the dance that had become so familiar and necessary between them, a paw at her breasts, heavy and nipples pebbling in his palm, then circling upwards to the smooth column of her neck, clasping it, lightly, just to remind her of the cruelty that his hands could promise if she so desired (and desired she oft did), then scraping at the swell of her lips, parted in awe, before descending down the curvature of her body arching towards him, soft skin interrupted by the jut of bone and lean expanse of muscle.

His hands were plunging down her body, hungry and tireless until they find their goal, spreading her legs with a casual swipe and dragging across the fullness of her vulva, finding her wet and plump, as full of water and life herself as the ocean rolling slowly past their sleepy ship. He plumbed the depths, thrumming her clit casually and was rewarded with a poorly stifled moan as he worked her over. 

No time to question, no time to pause him and remind him, dutifully and methodical, that Mulder, we are on the balcony of a cruise ship and anyone at any time could wake up and see us, what are you doing, oh and also it’s below freezing and I’m _naked_ but did it matter when he was cupping her ass that way and spreading her wide, wide, wide and penetrating her from this angle as well and ‘round the front, his teeth and tongue laving her pale neck and shoulder? Nothing mattered. Nothing had ever mattered, all paled in comparison to this, to Fox Mulder, to this ethereal, damned love. And it left nothing in its wake, rent her bed-tousled and trembling in his arms as he entered her with his hot cock and two fingers into her mouth, sucking frantically and tongue working him over.

Slow wasn’t something that came to them naturally. Two chronically exhausted FBI agents, sex often was tumbling and quick, growling on kitchen counters and screaming into her winter flannel bedsheets as Mulder played contortionist on her body. But it felt as easy as breathing as he fucked her slow and easy, thrusting deep and achingly into her. They watched the dawn spread across the murky horizon, grey and lovely, as he came inside her, biting into her neck so hard she was certain there’d be a perfect crescent to remind her after and she found she couldn’t possibly care less as he brought her to climax around his cock, yelping out and clutching the slippery balcony desperately as her thighs quivered like strung harpstrings. 

“Oh Mulder,” she rasped desperately, falling back into his waiting arms, shivering. “You’re going to be the death of me.” 

She had never understood her father and brother’s inexorable love for the sea. She had dismissed it as some sort of machismo fascination, the sort of thing that whipped Captain Ahab himself to a fruitless search across the Atlantic for his mythic white skinned beast, finding nothing of interest on fishing boats and even touring the great aircraft carriers herself that her father claimed as his own. Nothing but salt and anguish and loneliness. But cradled in Mulder’s arms this way, the dawn breaking pink and new over the now exposed horizon, she thought she might find something of value in this endless sea. 

**Author's Note:**

> a/n: thanks for reading! i've spent a lot of time at sea so this was really fun for me to write. don't think i've ever heard of msr fucking on a cruise ship so i guess that's my name to fame. ;)


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